Jury foreman in Apple-Samsung patent case answers back

Velvin Hogan, the jury foreman who was cited Thursday by Samsung as being biased and the reason why Samsung believes it should get a new patent trial against Apple, has commented on the allegations made by the giant Korean manufacturer. Samsung is a strategic partner and major shareholder with Seagate Technology. Hogan is a former employee of Seagate and was involved in a law suit with them after declaring bankruptcy in 1993. The problem, as Samsung sees it, is that this information was not disclosed to the court during voir dire when prospective jury members are questioned. Additionally, Hogan took command of the jury room during deliberations and allegedly applied incorrect legal standards when discussing the case with the other members of the jury.

In its filing requesting a new trial, Samsung says that Hogan's failure to disclose the Seagate connection to the court was an issue that Samsung should have been "able to explore" and suggested that Hogan lied in order to obtain a seat on the jury. In a phone interview conducted this week, Hogan said that he considered it "an honor" to have been selected for the jury because of his 40 years as an electrical engineer. As for his failure to disclose the bankruptcy and connection to Seagate, Hogan said that the questions asked him to go back ten years and all of those issues occurred out of that time frame. "I answered every question the judge asked me," Hogan said, adding that Samsung "had every opportunity to question me." The 67 year-old also said that he was surprised that Samsung didn't know about his relationship with Seagate considering he has a relationship with an attorney from Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP, the firm that represented Samsung in the law suit.

"It is very hard to get a jury verdict thrown out for juror misconduct. If he truthfully answered the questions he was asked, Samsung will have a hard time proving bias."-Mark Lemley, Stanford Law School professor

Hogan now wonders if Samsung let him stay on the jury so that they could have an excuse to ask for a new trial if they lost the first one. Stating that this was not the case, Samsung told the court that it did not learn about Hogan's lawsuit against Seagate until after the verdict. In its filing with the U.S. District Court, Samsung noted that Diane M. Doolittle, a partner in the Silicon Valley office of Quinn Emanuel, is married to Michael F. Grady, the lawyer who filed Hogan's complaint against Seagate. The breach of contract lawsuit revolved around a loan Seagate claims it made in the amount of $25,000 to Hogan.

During deliberations, other jurors admitted that Hogan used his knowledge of patent law to guide them through the process of obtaining a patent. He had worked with attorneys over seven years to obtain patents on his "video-compression software". With Hogan and the rest of the jury deciding to ignore all of the prior art testimony presented by Samsung, Apple was awarded $1.05 billion, a sum that still could be tripled by Judge Lucy Koh following a December 6th hearing. In the meantime, the judge will have to decide if Hogan's connections and his incorrect use of legal standards as alleged by Samsung, are enough to throw out the verdict and order a new trial. If Judge Koh refuses to side with Samsung, the Korean manufacturer will most likely head to appellate court with all of this information.

ROFL HA HA HA HA HA HA!!
That was AWESOME!,
On topic; I think this Jury foreman was a Joke, I heard he got hot under the collar when it came to prior art, I bet some of his "inventions" weren't made by him.

Maybe LG is not in need. For example Nokia is one of the biggest mobile patents holder but Nokia doesn't sue everyone around. And believe Nokia has more reasonable patens than Apple's "rounded corners". If Nokia was in need, believe Nokia would find what to sue.

So its impossible for Apple to have perhaps... "borrowed" design cues and look and feel of say.. an unsuccessful phone? Is it so far fetched to say Apple also borrowed from other companies design cues? I'm not trolling just curious. And not only "successful" things are copied.. id assume if its something someone liked then its worth copying. Apple might not have liked the OS on the phone but liked general style and took cues. Keep an open mind I am doing the same.

iPhone is a natural continuation of Dieter Rams inspiration, a hybrid between retro style of Rams and Apple's design language nurtured and developed for years.

Final product came somewhat similar to LG Prada, but this was only due to the fact that basic shape was way too generic. Other than that, LG Prada is not even close in terms of design when we look on execution of final form.

Now, most people take this "generic" argument to say that Samsung also had generic shape, but this reduction is never what this trial was about. Samsung copied the fundamental visual structure od iPhone, the logic itself, not just basic shape. Arguments with "rounded rectangles" are childish at least.

After all, it all comes down to what institutiolized authority one has for proper judgment. I'm professional industrial designer specialized for Apple. And who are the general masses that blame Apple? Just people without skill in design and aesthetics, and especially without knowledge of US design patent system.

The jury made the right decision, everything else is just a legal procedure, wrongly or correctly conducted and executed, I don't care for final outcome.

iPhone (4) is designed in seemingly simple form that resembles rounded rectangle with metallic edge tape. However the details like chamfered edges, distances and relation is something unique in approach of all mobile industry before that. The thought process that brough Apple to the design of iPhone 4 has a long history of development. iPhone is designed as an icon, that is, as something which is not designed. Everything is carefully balanced not to make the "decorative" redundant form which is a ususal approach.
That said, the design expert can easily trace this "no-design" philosophy and make logical connection of Apple's design evolution. In this evolution, it becomes clear that similarity between iPhone and LG Prada immidately stops, because it's a dead end. The similarity exists only on superficial level for non-experts that cannot visually represent to themselves the process of shaping a product and logic that underlies beneath.

For a design expert there is no dilemma: LG Prada is not copied. It's just a coincidence this generic form came similar on this superficial level.

This superficiality is now used as a contra-argument by Samsung fanboys. They only see superficial dimension of basic shape, and derive so called "reductio ad absurdum" argument that everything that has circle in its basic form shoul be a copy of wheel etc. Only idiot would go this far with perversion of logic, and it seems that there are many idiots out there.

On the other hand, the question of whether Samsung has "copied" Apple in the same sense is very different.
Samsung Galsaxy S also resembles iPhone (3G) on a superficial level, however that's where design expert will see something absent in the case of iPhone and LG Prada - he will see the intention.
Intention, the motif, the non-coincidence.

Because it's not about superficial basic shape. It's about structural logic (relations of shape, user-interface with all the important details etc.) that incorporates similarity with iPhone *on purpose*, and design expert can never trace the chain of thought that would prove otherwise, i.e. that design Samsung Galaxy S was pre-dating iPhone. Instead, it becomes clear that Samsung has copied this logic, and investigation of design evolution process could easily prove that Samsung design was DERIVED from iPhone's. So iPhone design was not an inspiration, but a mold.

The difference between the two is very thin for inexperienced eye, but for design expert the difference is huge. Their origin is fundamentally different.

So the final product of Samsung was a device that didn't want to be exactly the same copy of iPhone, but it wanted to resemble it (by changing Android to this level of conformity with the shape on purpose!) so that buyer could interpret it as a cheaper but better alternative.

And of course, one of the key questions of every trial is the question of whether there was a motif.

Apple did not have the motif to copy LG. LG Prada is actually poorly designed phone.
And it was a market flop. Apple was already conquering the world with iPhone 3G/S, and thay didn't need LG for that. For that matter, iPhone could have looked like anything, it would still be successful.

On the other hand, Samsung did have the motif. For years before Galaxy S, they were desperate. They were rich, alright, but then it was Nokia also rich.
They choose the unfair road: to copy iPhone and to gain momentum for later success. Because this subsequent success of Samsung is not based on their devices per se, but on cultural signification as something opposed to that manipulative Apple, and they succeded precisely because they were based on similarity that coudl be read in the public as a competition.

So Samsung has gone sky high after amsung Galaxy S, and this is the real reason why Galaxy SII was eveen more successful (and didnt need to be copied anymore), and now we see the final result in Samsung Galaxy SIII that now makes Samsung the real threat to Apple because they copied their ideas.

Also, when we are talking about motifs, Samsung has proved to be copying Apple on myriads of other examples, so when we combine all this, we have the case.

But the most fascinating thing are masses of Samsung fanboys, that are now stupid and blind like Apple fanboys, reducing the logic to absurd levels, popping out of every corner of Internet mediasphere, to cheer for Samsung as the good guy (they probably don't know how mob-like this company is in South Korea), spreading the hatred towrds Apple. Those are real religious wars, just in virtual world. And I love to play with it.

I think LG Prada was fairly successful, It was never aimed at people who wanted functionality it was a typical prada product. The main reason Prada choose LG to make that phone was due to the success of the chocolate. LG went on to make more fashion (black label) phones like shine, secret and new chocolates which had much better functionality. Those were the days, Nokia always had the best phone for me.

I don't think apple copied Prada though, the iphone was released at almost the same time. Considering the technology involved in designing the iphone i don't think they would have copied and implemented all within the year. Iam also sure iphone would have used a capacitive screen even if prada hadn't been released.

Whether Samsung copied or not banning a product is not a solution, it is a loss for us to not have choices so it is better if all these things get settled outside the court.

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